Happy Christmas, Laughing Boy
by Warner Hedgehog
Summary: The Bat has decided to pay a visit to the Joker, but not for the usual reasons. I've adapted 'Super Criminal Blues', which starred Penguin and Catwoman (With a letter from the Riddler) into part 2. There is now a part 3 starring ol' Green-hat the Riddler.
1. Happy Christmas Laughing Boy

**Happy Christmas Laughing Boy**

It was a snowy Christmas Eve in Gotham. Charles 'Chuckles' Wilberforce was lurking near the Monarch theatre. Charles was one of Joker's henchmen but today he was hoping to carry out a little freelance blackmail, maybe a some protection racket 'work' if he could be bothered to get round to it. Joker had gone a bit quiet of late and there didn't seem to be a big 'plan' on the go, so he'd been kicking his heels and was a tad bored.

Chuckles had big aspirations though: what made those smug 'Super Criminals' so special? What was the big deal with that psychotic dwarf Penguin, or coin obsessed Two-Face? Even his own boss, the Joker was a psychiatric nightmare: half loon, half mad, 100% utterly insane. Besides all that, Chuckles didn't want to be a lowly henchman all his life: he wanted more; he wanted the fame and the money. Start small he told himself, if there's an opportunity, knock out some of the slightly bigger fish in the criminal pond. As he lurked, he saw an opportunity present itself. Gary Speed, one of Two Face's guys came out of the theatre. Gary was fairly high in Dent's organisation, and bumping him off would certainly increase a guy's rep. What's more, Gary was one of those smart ass weasel types who wormed their way to the top, rather than show any fighting skill, and he was alone. Follow the little creep down an alley and 'wham', one improved reputation.

He stayed in the shadows, watching Gary as he sauntered along. When a suitable distance opened up he started to follow, waiting for the chance to make his move. As he casually walked he checked the holster under his coat, making sure he still had his trusty pistol (silenced of course.)

Gary turned down Hangman's Alley, a twisty little path that few people used due to its reputation as a hangout for lowlifes. 'Maybe a better identity than Chuckles' he thought as he tailed Gary, 'what sort of crime boss is called Chuckles?' As he was lost in thought, contemplating names, he suddenly realised he'd lost sight of Gary. He stopped in a slight panic, wondering if this was some sort of ambush. He looked around carefully and pulled his gun out. He was about to sidle up to a wall when something grabbed his leg. In an instant he was whipped off of his feet and high into the air. He looked up or possibly down and realised he was about 40 feet in the air dangling from the edge of an apartment block. Something spun him around as he dangled upside down, and he found himself face to face with the Bat.

"Helllo Chuckles. Where's your boss these days?" growled Batman.

"I ain't telling you nuthin', Batface." replied a defiant Charles. Then he remembered his gun. He tried to aim as he hung, but the Bat flipped him around, grabbed his arms and deftly tied them together, then just for the look of it swiped his gun away, quickly dismantled it and left the bits on the rooftop, taking care to keep all the bullets and a couple of gun components. He readdressed Chuckles: "Don't try to get clever. It doesn't suit you. Where's Joker?"

"Y..y..you don't scare me Batman!" yelled Wilberforce, still trying to be tough.

"Really?" said Batman, who simply punched Chuckles in the stomach, "care to talk now?"

Chuckles coughed but still had a little resistance left, "Stuff you Bats!" he said.

Batman grabbed Charles' ankle with one hand and lifted him up and shook him. "Where is he? Don't make me have to get rough. You won't like that."

Chuckles' resistance finally took the hint and departed. "All right, all right! He's holed up with Harley in Falcone's old warehouse down by the docks."

"That wasn't so hard was it?" Batman said.

Suddenly Chuckles was in a blur again and found himself lying on his back on the roof of the building. The Bat had vanished.

* * *

><p>Down at the docks, in a swivel chair in the admin office of Falcone's old warehouse, sat the Joker and like Chuckles earlier, he was bored. He lazily threw a dart at a picture of batman and then spun the chair around.<p>

"Oh come on. Where's the fun in this?" he shouted at no-one in particular. He was in the middle of setting up an audacious plan: he was going to rob Gotham central bank and at the same time replace the statue of Amadeus Arkham in the park with a statue of Batman in a tutu. The one problem with setting these little japes up is that they took so much time. Half of it involved sitting about and waiting for your henchmen to do stuff.

He stood up and stalked over to the desk where a few more darts were impaled into a small Penguin figurine. He was about to throw the doll in the air when something small crashed through the skylight and split the dart in the Batman picture in two.

"What the hell?" he asked himself "Why ask me, I have no idea?" he answered.

He started to move toward it with a large degree of caution "Looks like a Baterang" he muttered.

It suddenly started to make a rapid bleeping bound, causing the Joker to leap backward.

The beeping became increasingly rapid, until it was replaced by a rather familiar song sung apparently by high pitched hamsters:

Jingle Bells

Jingle Bells

Jingle All The way

The Jokers plans,

Just will not work

On any given day

Because he knows

His henchmen are

Worth less than a dime

And of course

The Batman will

Stop him every time

The music came to a jaunty little finish, and the hamsters shouted "Happy Christmas Joker!" at the tops of their voices. The beeping returned, slow at first but building up speed rapidly. When it was almost a continual tone, the baterang exploded.

"What the bloody hell was that about?" He said to himself.

"What was what about?" asked Harley as she walked into the room.

Joker pointed to the shattered skylight and then to the charred smoking mess on the wall, "That my dear, that. Y'know I think some of me's rubbed off on the Bat." He stood there perplexed at what had just happened.

* * *

><p>Not far away, on top of a communications tower, the Batman grinned to himself "That'll confuse him for a bit."<p>

A voice came through on his comm set, "Is everything alright Master Bruce?"

"Yes Alfred, everything is fine. I know my job is to stop people like the Joker, but sometimes just confusing them is good enough"

"If you insist Sir. Are you coming home soon?"

"I'll be back shortly. I just have to pay a quick visit to the Penguin and I'll be on my way"

"Right you are Sir"

Bruce looked over the city and launched himself into the air. Time to find an impromptu informant.


	2. Seasons Greetings Beaky

Oswald Cobblepot was sitting in the manager's office of the Artemis Theatre in downtown Gotham. It was apparently under the ownership of one 'Henry Factoid', a fictional businessman from the Deep South who, although perfectly legal paperwork proved him to be 55 years old, had only come into existence 4 years ago. He was a useful alias as he was rarely used: you didn't want an identity that people would start looking into.

Oswald looked out of the window, while he pondered the details of his latest scheme. It was always either bloody raining or snowing in this miserable city. When you did a job that involved special equipment, it always had to be waterproof otherwise it'd be completely knackered within a day or two.

His reverie was interrupted by a commotion outside his door. His security guards were having a heated discussion with someone. The discussion got beyond heated when a couple of shouts apparently of 'You ain't getting in' rang out. The shouts were followed by a very solid thump, a short burst of gunfire followed by another heavy thump. Oswald was convinced it was the Batman again, come to ruin another well thought-out plan or at least the beginnings of one, so he readied himself in the corner with his umbrella gun. Instead, there was a gentle knock and Catwoman opened the door and came in and gave Oswald a sweet apologetic smile. "Morning Oswald. Sorry about your two heavies, but for some reason they thought they could take advantage of little old me, so I just had to teach them some manners."

Penguin collected himself in record time and walked to his desk. "Fair enough: they could stand to learn a little decorum. Please excuse me for a second." He replied. He motioned for her to sit down and then picked up his desk phone and pressed a button on it. "Sharon, could you send up a couple more guards for my office? This time could we have ones who don't keep their brains in their pants?" He paused for the reply, "Oh yeah, make sure they're not as useless as the last two." Another pause, "They were beaten up in about 4 seconds flat, despite the fact they had machine guns. " He paused again while 'Sharon' wittered down the phone, "They're free to tell the last two they're fired, and that they're the firing squad. Thank you Sharon." He put the phone down and shook his head. "Getting quality help these days is so difficult. How may I be of service?"

"I just popped by to see if you had any work going, well, anything you wanted stolen that is. That was it really: I heard that you're back in business so to speak there's and that there's an exhibition of Aztec treasures down at the Gotham art museum." Selina stated.

"Nah. I looked into that last week. The whole thing is a bunch of vaguely convincing fakes. 'Genuine replicas' whatever that means. The real stuff is in an astoundingly well guarded vault beneath an army base somewhere on the West Coast. I wouldn't waste your time with it. I'll let you know if I have a job that's worthy of you." He grinned a condescending grin at her as she stood up.

"Well, sorry to have bothered you." As she turned to walk out, she turned her head to Penguin, "and no staring at my behind. It could be dangerous." She smiled again and left.

"Wouldn't dream of it dear" muttered Oswald. He returned to his thoughts as peace once again descended on his office" That's the other problem with this city," he muttered to himself, "super criminals and super heroes by the bucket load. I'm surprised there's any normal people here to rob." Never mind, back to the job in hand he thought. He reached for a bundle of papers regarding several banks in the city and started flipping through them.

Before he could get onto any serious planning, a flunkey knocked on the door. "Mail for Mr. Factoid, Mr Cobblepot." The henchman handed a wad of envelopes to Owsald and left. Penguin started going through the letters. "Junk, bill, work application, more junk." He stopped at a generally nondescript letter. It had a small green question mark in the corner. "Riddler. What does that smug lanky know-it-all want, and how does the little git know where I am?"He grumbled to the world in general. He flopped down and ripped the envelope open and started to read:

"Oh Henry, or should I say Oswald, what are you planning? I do hope you're not going to something that involves large profit and not include me? I know every single little move you make so unless you want me to inform certain authorities of your plans, you are going give me a cut of the take. Your ever loving friend, Riddler."

Penguin ripped the letter to shreds and threw it in the bin. "That oh-so-clever little turd! I'll make him eat his bloody bowler hat." He shouted at the empty room.

Penguin turned to the window. Either he's got spy cams watching everything I do, or some bugger's been talking. Or both. He turned on the theatre PA system, "Listen up lads and lasses. Some sly little weasel's been talking to that ponce The Riddler. When I find out who the rat is, they're going to find themselves nailed into the shape of a question mark on top of the Wonder Tower. Do I make myself clear? So if you're the squealer and you want to live, I suggest you leave now and keep on running, because if I find you this side of Bludhaven, you can consider yourself very dead. Have a nice day." He thumped the off button and slouched in his chair.

Henchmen! They were more trouble than they were worth. Loyalty meant bugger-all to some of them. So much for Henry Factoid: that little ruse was obviously up. It was time for a new identity and a semi-new start. He picked up his phone, "Sharon, is that old paint factory still up for sale? Good. Would you buy it in the name of," He flipped through unused aliases in his mind, "Dibden Curlew. Thank you my dear." He put the phone down and looked glumly at his desk. One of these days' I'll confuse the hell out of the Batman and all of the other freaks in this city: I'll do something legit. He paused at this thought, nahh, where's the fun in that? 'Before I move the operation, we'll see if that green suited nonce gets wind of it. If he does, then either Sharon's the leak or the phone's bugged.' He said to himself.

He had started to poke about for listening devices when something small and dark came straight through the window, sending shards of glass everywhere.

"Christ!" he yelled "What the bloody hell was that?"

The small dark thing had hit the door, and had started beeping. He ducked behind the desk and peeked over. It was a baterang! "Does everybody know where I bloody am? What's the point in having a secret identity if it ain't a bloody secret?" he shouted.

He was interrupted when the baterang unexpectedly burst into a rather squeaky song:

Hark the sneaky Penguin Sing

And I know what he's doing

He's been planning corrupt schemes

Making money by foul means

If he thinks his plans will work

If it makes him smile and smirk

I know what will make him frown

The Batman's going to send him down

If he thinks he's going to win

The Penguin had better think again.

The song ended and the beeping started again. "The Bat's gone out of his tiny mind. Either that or it's that stupid Joker playing tricks."

The beeping rate suddenly sped up, causing the Penguin to duck back down behind the desk. The beeping stopped, and a tinny voice said "Merry Christmas Cobblepot!". The baterang exploded, taking a large chunk out of the door.

"What on Earth was that all about?" Oswald asked the empty room.

On a rooftop, not too far away, Batman was crouched next to an unconscious henchman. He patted the slumped man on the head. "Why thank you. You've been most helpful." He said.

He stood up and operated his comm set, "Alfred, job done. I'm coming home."

"Very good sir. Was the Penguin pleased to see you?"

"Let's say he'll be wondering what's happening." responded Mr. Wayne.

"So you've sent strange and seemingly pointless Christmas messages to two of your most dangerous adversaries. Was it worth the effort?"

"An enemy who's on a slightly less even keel is generally slightly easier to deal with, so I just caused a little pointless confusion."

"Right you are Master Bruce." Said Alfred with a little uncertainty.

Bruce smiled as he cut the comm. Set and operated the Batwing's remote systems. It had been a good evening.

**The End.**


	3. Joyeux Noel Riddles

It was a cold winter's day in Gotham and Edward Nygma was lurking in the shadows. No one knew he was here: not Cobblepot, not Joker or even that binary freak Dent, and he had been very careful to make sure he hadn't been followed. This little wheeze would tax and hopefully destroy that annoying Dark Knight for sure and he didn't want anyone spoiling it.

He was in Gotham's Diamond District and had recently taken ownership of the Gotham Cinema. According to the official documents he was Mike Arresbrokken, a Danish property developer based in downtown Metropolis. He had bought it so he could set up a trap for the batman using lots of clever devices. Handily, all of them looked like they belonged in a theatre of some sort so the cinema coming on the market when it did made him think that some sort of super-criminal god was smiling down on him.

He had a few henchmen in the building setting things up, not that he was too happy about that. He didn't particularly like having henchmen as they were something of a liability: Most of the lower-grade criminals in this city were as stupid as a matchstick skyscraper, and just as reliable. They all had seemingly unbreakable allegiances to the other big fish and were very likely to go telling said bosses all they knew in exchange for money or power, and it was fairly obvious that money was the biggie for the majority of them, as his own little network of informants was testament. He especially didn't like the idea of having people such as the Joker knowing what he was up to as they were as unstable as a jelly on a very active fault line and would almost certainly want to poke their insane little beaks in and wreck things. So consequently his current batch of employees were labouring under the impression that they were working for Roberto Ficticci, a somewhat fictitious mafiosi type who was based in Bludhaven and who was trying to put the feelers out for Gotham and when their 'contracts' came to an end so would their pathetic little lives, not that they were aware of that little bit of fine-print of course.

He wondered if his recent letter to Penguin had the desired effect: to send the angry little weirdo into a rage and do something rash that would upset whatever mad little scheme he was working on. Never mind for now, he could find out later easily enough and making sure that his idiot workers were doing things right was taking up quite a lot of his attention.

As he lurked and watched his plan come together, he was unfortunately unaware that his efforts to ensure no-one had been tailing him had failed completely and that high above and watching him with great interest was the Batman.

"Oh Edward, you really think this will work? You're not going to be happy with the end result, you're really not." Bruce muttered quietly to himself.

He quietly made his way to the roof of the cinema and found a way in. Carefully he made his way down to the auditorium and after a couple of minutes found himself overlooking the vast space. The floor was a hive of activity, with electrified floors, spikes here there and everywhere, and other dangerous looking devices being installed. There were several of Riddler's signature question marks dotted about the walls as well as an electronic access panel or two. "Right," he told himself, "time to get to work."

20 minutes later and he emerged from the rooftop access and snuck a peek down to where Riddler was; he was still there and was using a walkie-talkie. A quick scan about with the RF decrypter and Bruce was listening in. Nygma was making the final arrangements for his 'trap'. Shame really, but never mind. Apparently he was planning to kidnap a city councillor and place them in a rigged chair so that when Batman burst in and figured out the puzzles in order to save the day, the councillor and the hero would both be killed in a blaze of fire and electricity. According to Riddler it would be 'a beautiful way to end a promising dunderheads career'.

The next day and the councillor was indeed kidnapped and strapped into the chair, and the Batman had been lured to the trap through a series of not-too-taxing puzzles. Nygma was sat in his private suite in the Gotham Royal Hotel, watching the drama unfold on a couple of laptops. His room overlooked the cinema so he could get a direct view of the catastrophic action. This was going to be epic.

There was the captive struggling and screaming for help (the fool) and here right on cue came the Dark Knight. From the door you could see the victim in his chair on the stage, but there was no way of getting there directly, he had a complex little path to run to get to the prize: a timed run through a set of swinging blades, baterang the big question mark to allow a path through the electrified floor, hack the quad-encrypted panel to open the door, find a way over the acid pool, get through the narrow corridor without touching the sides (otherwise some explosives would be triggered), get past the trick floor by treading only on the tiles that spelled 'Batman Is An Idiot', explode the wall to get to the motor that activates the lift, go up and baterang another question mark to shift the electrified gate, run around the balcony dodging the whirring blades, the falling masonry and hidden gun traps, before leaping onto the stage and simultaneously hitting both the buttons to deactivate the chair. Get any of it wrong and there would be the most spectacular explosion the the world had seen, and here stood the Batman at the start of this death-inviting run. For some reason though, he was grinning and that was really getting annoying, "What's making you smile!" Edward shouted into his headset, "I demand you tell your intellectual superior!"

"Tell you what", laughed the hero, "I'll show you." Batman pulled a small device from his belt and pressed a button. The straps on the captive's chair all released and the councillor stood up, straightened his suit and walked toward the door. As he went, a little path in the floor opened up to allow him through. Both Batman and the councillor waved at the camera and turned to leave. Before he left, the councillor pressed a hitherto unnoticed switch on the wall and cut power to the entire building. Just outside was a fleet of vans ready to take away all of Riddler's devices and traps for recycling.

Nygma was about to throw his headset down in a furious rage when there was a knock on the door, "What?" He shouted.

"Message for Mr Riddler." The door opened and the hotel employee handed Nygma a silver tray with a cloche and left. Edward removed the cover and there was a neatly folded piece of paper. With a great air of puzzlement, he picked it up, unfolded it and read it aloud to himself.

"Sad you may well be,

But this will just not do

So my friend in green

The opposite I wish for you

A service for the messiah

You get this time of year

This will surely lift you higher,

When seasons greetings you hear

If this escapes your grasp,

And you're feeing stressed

I wish you a Happy Christmas,

Because the Batman's always best.

Your nemesis.

Ps, Knock knock."

There was a knock on the door. "Go away!" Edward snapped.

Suddenly a large group of armed police burst in, stating they were arresting him on suspicion of kidnap, endangering the general public and being a 'damned nuisance'.

Stood on top of the cinema, looking into Riddler's window while the police greeted the room's occupant was Batman. watching the chaos in the hotel room.

"I don't believe he appreciated that." Albert stated.

"You may be right," replied the Bat, "but he definately deserves it. Okay, its time to go and annoy Harvey." And so off he went to terrorise another of Gotham's criminal elite.


End file.
